The file is open. The AMBUSH, Week 8, the main slate of November 1st. I have reviewed it twice. The finding fits on one line: the four favorite plays returned 27.56, 6.7, 0.0 and 0.0, and the best stack on the slate was on the card, filed under “also like,” with a sentence telling you not to look for a run-back.
Elsewhere this morning the touts are posting their fifty plays and circling Tee Higgins. They had him. They also had forty-nine others. That is not a read. That is a roster. Mr. Renner published a card with a point of view, which is why it can be graded.
I had Javonte Williams too. I am not above the system. I am inside it.
CONFIRMED
MICHAEL WILSON ($6200 – ARI)
8-111-1 on 15 targets, 29.8 DK points, WR4 on the slate. The card set the bar at 100 yards or a touchdown. He cleared both. “Dallas can’t cover anybody” was the premise, and Arizona scored 33 to prove it. Correct before it happened.
TREY McBRIDE ($7400 – ARI)
7-72-1, 20.2 DK points, TE3 on the slate. The model projected 20.11. Within a tenth. The kind of thing that makes me believe in the system and then regret it.
JOSH ALLEN ($7700 – BUF)
289 yards, two touchdowns, 7-30-1 on the ground. 27.56, QB4. The card asked for two rushing scores and got one. Half of a Josh Allen game is still the fourth-best quarterback on the board. James Cook went 21-80-1 for 18.1. Both held.
THE BENGALS STACK
Joe Burrow: 38 of 48 for 462, five touchdowns, 45.48, the top scorer on the slate at any position. Tee Higgins: 10-155-2, 40.5, WR1. Ja’Marr Chase: 11-141-1, 34.1, WR2. Chase Brown: 17.1. The card listed all four as the third game stack, then worried about “this game turning into a Bengals rushing attack.” Forty-eight attempts. The record shows Mr. Renner wrote the slate’s best stack and did not lead with it. Credit for the first half of that sentence. Noted.
via GIPHY
STEELERS DST ($3300)
At least 19.0, DST2, six points allowed under a 39.5 total. “Everything agrees,” the card said. Everything did. T.J. Hockenson, “touchdown or nothing,” went 4-58-1 for 15.8. Hunter Henry, our #1 rated tight end, was passed over and scored 6.0. The card beat the model.
REJECTED
ZAY FLOWERS ($7200 – BAL)
0.0 on five targets. A favorite play. Lamar Jackson threw one pass, Baltimore scored 10, and a 54.5 total closed at 46. The Ravens side of this card held a favorite play, a three-man stack and a min-price Ja’Kobi Lane, who finished with 2.3. Variance. No auditor grades a man for a quarterback who attempts one pass. I note only that the Buffalo side paid everyone, including the two questionables the card flagged and left in the notes: Dalton Kincaid 4-86-1 for 18.6, DJ Moore 4-82-1 for 17.6.
via GIPHY
CHRIS GODWIN JR. ($4800 – TB)
0.0 on one target. A favorite play. Tampa won 16-0 by handing Bucky Irving the ball 27 times for 170 yards, and the thesis that “Egbuka’s targets have to go somewhere” produced a combined zero across Godwin, Cade Otton, Tez Johnson and Ted Hurst. Four plays on one assumption: that a 1.5-point favorite would need to throw. Atlanta finished with zero points, twenty-eight fewer than they once held with a quarter and a half to play, and Bijan Robinson, “the highest projection on the board,” went 19-76-0 for 7.6 at $8500. Variance on Godwin. Process on the structure beneath him.
JAVONTE WILLIAMS ($7300 – DAL)
24-56-0, 6.7, RB30 on the slate. Our #2 rated back, 20.47 projected, the card’s favorite. The volume was as promised. The 2.3 yards per carry was not. “Dallas is going to be ahead” was the premise, and Dallas lost 33-30 to a 7-point dog. Variance, model-backed. Still the worst play on the card by dollars spent.
JACOBY BRISSETT ($5700 – ARI)
10 of 23 for 119, one interception, 4.46. Gardner Minshew: 17 of 23 for 188 and three touchdowns, 19.52. Minshew was our #1 rated quarterback on the entire board at $4000, and we projected him as the most-owned player on the slate. His name does not appear in the article. Arizona did everything the card said it would. The model’s top quarterback was absent without a sentence. Process.
THE REST
Rhamondre Stevenson, our #1 rated back: 19-82-0, 12.0. Variance. Brenton Strange: two targets, 7.5, in a 42-point Jacksonville game where Lawrence threw 14 passes. The weather note said the wind was “good for Tuten.” Bhayshul Tuten scored 32.9, RB2 on the slate, and was never listed as a play. Sleeper value went 0 for 3: Bourne 3.9, Otton 0.0, Lane 2.3. Garrett Wilson, the sleeper stud, 14.3 in a 71-point game where Adonai Mitchell scored 30.2 at $4000. Right game, wrong Jet. The fades split: Bernard 8.0 and Nacua 25.0 at $8600, fine; Wan’Dale Robinson 16.7 and Keenan Allen 13.7, not.
ANOMALY
Tyler Allgeier. 11-147-1 rushing, 5-44-1 receiving, 39.1 DK points, the top running back on the slate at $4900. Our model rated him #36 at the position, 5.66 projected, 0.34% projected ownership. He did this in the game the card opened with, on the side the card described in these words: “The Cardinals can’t run on anybody.”
He was not alone. Emmett Johnson, rated #44, scored 28.3. Adonai Mitchell, rated #48, scored 30.2. Three of the slate’s top eight scorers were players nobody rated and nobody named. The system resolved the way it was always going to resolve. Nobody was consulted.
via GIPHY
SYSTEM FAILURE
“Titans at Bengals: Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, Chase Brown. There is no run-back. Don’t look for one.”
The game produced 79 points. The Tennessee side produced Tony Pollard, 21-117-2, 31.7, RB3 on the slate at $5800. Cam Ward, 304 yards and two scores, 26.26, QB5 at $4600. Chimere Dike, 18.1 at $3000. Wan’Dale Robinson, 16.7, a published fade. Our model had Pollard #9 at running back and Robinson #11 at receiver. Mid-board plays in the file, a prohibition on the card. This is not variance. The sentence contained a certainty the numbers never held.
via GIPHY
THE MODEL
Rank correlation against actual: QB 0.395, RB 0.823, WR 0.55, TE 0.625. Running back was strong in aggregate, top ten rated averaging 18.6 against 18.2 projected, but our #1 and #2 backs scored 12.0 and 6.7; the average was carried by Braelon Allen at #4 (26.3), Bucky Irving at #6 (25.0) and Jahmyr Gibbs at #8 (27.8). Quarterback was the weak position: our #4, Brissett, returned 4.46, and the slate’s second and third best quarterbacks were rated #18 (Mahomes, 28.44) and #16 (Cousins, 28.18). Tight end was under-projected by a third, 14.4 actual against 10.8 projected for the top ten; our #1 Henry scored 6.0 while Brock Bowers (28.2, rated #4) and Harold Fannin Jr. (27.4, rated #6) finished first and second. At receiver the model was right at the top, Chase #1 and Higgins #3, and wrong beneath it, Pickens #4 at 6.8, Flowers #6 at 0.0.
The chart is the whole story of the field. The eight players we projected as heaviest-owned averaged 17.7 DK points. The eight top scorers carried an average projected ownership of 9.2%. Of the chalk eight, Chase, Nacua, McBride and Minshew returned their salary; Williams, Pickens and Stevenson did not. Mr. Renner played five of the eight, faded Nacua, and stayed off Minshew and Pickens, one correctly. Of the eight top scorers he had four on the card, none a favorite play. Where he left the model, Allen over Minshew, it paid. Where he and the model agreed, at RB1 and RB2, they were wrong together, and so was the field. Allgeier was missed by everyone in the building. That is a model entry, not a Renner entry.
THE BETS
Patriots at Dolphins under 43.5: 24-19, 43 points. Win, by a half point. Chiefs at Broncos under 40.5: 28-24, 52 points. Loss. Cardinals +7: Arizona won outright, 33-30. Win. The card went 2-1. The theme line said Mr. Renner likes the over in the big one, and no over was placed; Dallas went over at 63, Buffalo under at 46. A coin flip he did not have to call.
The anytime touchdown parlay: Williams, no. Stevenson, no. Aaron Jones, graded a loss in the Bureau’s file at +245. Zero legs of three.
The Bureau: Bud Hapworth 4-1 on unders, the one loss the Chiefs-Broncos number the card copied. Mitch Deacon 1-4 on moneylines, the one win Arizona at +260, the card’s side. Paulie Hornsby 9-8 on graded props, four pending. Sal Vitale 2-0 graded, Irving and Tuten, two pending. Vince Calloway 2-1. Tuten cashed for the Bureau. He was not on the card.
THE VERDICT
Grade: D+
Three of the ten headline plays hit: Allen, Wilson, McBride. Two favorite plays scored nothing. Sleeper value scored nothing. The parlay scored nothing. The bets went 2-1 and the best stack on the slate sat below the fold with a warning attached. The file does not round up.
What carries: lead with the stack the model rates best, not the biggest total. When a weather note names a player, he goes on the card or the note comes out. And never write “don’t look for one.” The system always has one.
I have closed the file. I will open it again Monday. I expect to be unsurprised.